The search for Chief Lucky Man's grave Part 1

The story goes there were two Cree hunters camped in the Cypress Hills a long time ago. They heard crying carried on the wind. The crying became louder and then they saw an elderly Knotted Hair medicine man approaching. It was he who was crying. " Be kind to the buffalo, my grandsons, for the day is coming when they will be no more", he said and then left crying as he went. The hunters laughed and believed the old man to be feeble minded, for they both knew the land was full of buffalo in every direction as it had always been.
In 1885 the last lonely wild plains buffalo was sighted near Havre Montana. It was promptly shot and eaten by the townspeople. The Knotted Hair had been right.
In this same year, fighting happened in the north. Riel's Metis and Indian allies surrendered at Batoche. Poundmaker's Cree and Assiniboine followers surrendered at Battleford and only Big Bear's band remained. In spite of three Canadian armies converging on them, a large group including women and children escaped down the spine of the Thickwood Hills, crossed the North Saskatchewan River, then moved west, hiding by day and traveling by night until they reached the north shore of Tramping Lake. They followed it along the western shore then moved southwesterly through sparsely inhabited prairie and plain. They by passed Medicine Hat and crossed the Cypress Hills to the safety of Montana. These people were led by Big Bear's son, Iamses or as he is better known in Montana, Chief Little Bear.
Among these Cree refugees was Lucky Man, father in law to Little Bear and a Chief in his own right. It is said Chief Lucky Man held a grandchild's hand and sang as they crossed the hills within sight of safety. Chief Lucky Man had been a councillor under Chief Big Bear and he had entered Treaty as a Chief only at the insistence of Big Bear who asked him, in a time of unending hardship to take the old, the women and children to the provisions and relative safety of a reserve. The rest held out as best as they could while demanding better Treaty terms. Lucky Man's band stayed among relatives on Little Pine's Reserve awaiting a reserve. Fighting broke out before they chose their reserve and it would be at the end of the next centaury before they finally gained their new reserve.
My grandfather, the original Cuthand, was among those scattered Cree refugees who gathered in Montana. In1896 Queen Victoria granted amnesty and many Cree including my grandfather returned to Canada.
In the early 1980's I travelled to Rocky Boy Reservation in search of my grandfather's American history. I was greatly assisted by Geneva and Bill Stump, Art Rainingbird and Four Souls, who I met only months before his death. Four Souls was the grandson of Little Bear and spiritual leader of the Rocky Boy Cree. He successor was Raining Bird.
I found to my great sadness that I may have literally driven over some long ago relatives. In the early 1960's the main street of Havre was paved using gravel taken from an area near old Fort Assiniboine. Among the gravel were many Indian graves. These were simply mixed in with asphalt and made into a pavement The practice was finally stopped but not before considerable damage was done. These bones remain to this day a part of main street Havre.
I was shown the site of renowned warrior Little Poplar's death and his burial site nearby. This place must be of interest to his descendants on the Sweetgrass Reserve. I was told the site of Lucky Man and one of his daughter's graves was known to the Windy Boy family whose ancestor was buried nearby. Lucky Man and his daughter died of small pox in 1901 while attending a sun dance near the Milk River. Her name is unknown. It is believed she was about nineteen years old at the time of her death.
The Rocky Boy Reservation is located south east of Havre near Box Elder. It is sheltered by high hills and the Bear Paw Mountains. The land remains largely untouched prairie. At sunset, as shadows move across the face of the westernmost mountain what appears to be the claw marks of an enormous bear are seen in sharp relief and then mysteriously disappear. The experience can be quite eerie. This is how the Bear Paw Mountains got their name.
During my visits I found Geneva Stump and I were related by blood. Her ancestor Kitewepay or "the fur coat" was my grandfather's maternal uncle. I told her that from what I was told, our ancestor was a kind and generous man. She looked at me hard and replied, "Frog feathers! He had ten wives and he beat every one of them!" A once cherished family myth burst like a bubble and I had to laugh at the irony of it. In my next column I will write on the return to Rocky Boy with a direct descendant of Lucky Man and our search and discovery of not only Lucky Man's grave but our finding the first known photograph of him